Like just about everyone who has seen it, I was enthralled by "Lincoln," the Hollywood film directed with authority and creative license by Stephen Spielberg, smoothly scripted by Tony Kushner and crowned by a veritable feast of brilliant acting. But in my case, as the author of 40 books on African American history and editor of 212 library reference volumes (most address Civil War era issues and personalities), I watched with an additional set of eyes.
Spielberg begins his story inJanuary 1865, and on the right foot: Two former slaves, now Union soldiers, approach America’s most venerated President to inform him of their battle experiences and of the reality that if captured they would be immediately executed. One soldier adds, “our pay is half of what white soldiers get, and wehave to pay for our own uniforms.”
Perhaps this scene is meant to evokethe little known truth that by the Civil War’s end 178,958 AfricanAmericans -- one fifth of black male adults under 45, a tenth of the Union army-- had proven their courage in 449 engagements and 39 major battles, earning 22 Medals of Honor. Another 29,511 constituted a fourth of the (integrated!) Union Navy. And Black volunteers enlisted when the Confederacy had no reserves, faced mounting desertions, frontline casualties and bread riots at home. As early as August 1864, Lincoln had written that without his African American soldiers he would have been "compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.”
Audiences are soon presented with aseries of intense and consequential political discussions. A cautious Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis), his hand resting on the white public’s pulse, duels amicably with Congressman Thaddeus Stevens the grim-faced Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. As Stevens, Tommy Lee Jones steals every scene he is in as a cantankerous advocate of equality whose tongue, the film maintains, only Lincoln can tame.
Stevens, one of history’s most maligned figures, had the power to infuriate and a tongue that reduced political foes to quivering self-doubt. On two occasions he had to fend off knife-wielding fellow Congressmen. In 1863 Jubal Early detoured his Confederatecavalry from Gettysburg so they could burn down his iron foundry in Chambersburg. [See Fawn Brodie’s Thaddeus Stevens (1959,1966)].
Also Hollywood twice damned Stevens as a Benedict Arnold-grade “race traitor.” The racist blockbuster, Birth of a Nation (1915) caricatured him as a snarling foe of white supremacy and champion of “race mixing.” In Tennessee Johnson (1942) he is played as a conniving, evil, fanatic.
The real Stevens stood with abolitionists pledged to “fight against slavery until Hell freezes over and then continue the battle on the ice.” He defended fugitive slaves in court, used his home as an Underground Railroad station, and was a staunch egalitarian. He also practiced what he preached: he worked with African Americans, had an African American common law wife, and asked to be buried in Lancaster’s onlyintegrated cemetery. He and Senator Charles Sumner led Congress’s effort tofree slaves, grant them equal pay as soldiers, and pass the 13thAmendment. In 1867 Stevens, father of the 14th Amendment, died short of his life’s goal: a democratic South’s ruled not by a planter elite but former slave and poor white voters owning ”40 acres and a mule.”
Once "Lincoln" concentrates on the 13th Amendment important details beg forinclusion but, unfortunately, are absent. Senator Charles Sumner is mentioned once and Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony -- who led campaigns to win over the public's hearts and minds -- do not appear. Only Lincoln is left standing . . . the sole hero.
Also missing is the vital, rarely revealed, back-story. For two years Lincoln struggled only “to save the Union.” Not only did he refuse to challenge slavery, but he also ordered Union officers to deny a haven to runaway slave families whose members had fled to Union lines.
Then the ground beneath the President shifted. The sight of U.S. troops triggered slave stampedes to freedom, rebuking the planters’ myth of the happy, loyal, slave and igniting clashes between soldiers in Union camps and the Confederate officers who arrived to brutally reclaim runaways. Indeed, the Black urge for liberty turned the Confederacy’s greatest asset into its worst nightmare: an enemy within. “To see a black face was to find a trueheart,” reported Union soldiers caught behind enemy lines.
The actions of slaves began to dismantle the plantation system. The Confederacy was left without the thousands of slave laborers upon whosebacks the agricultural oligarchy had rested. Abolitionist agitators used this news to broadcast a louder wake-up call to white northerners.
Meanwhile, Lincoln’s officers reported “contrabands” in their camps wanted to help as nurses, cooks,servants, construction workers, launderers, and blacksmiths. Some were eager to serve as spies and soldiers. This news also reached a war-weary northern public fearful they would find the names of their drafted fathers, brothers and uncles in the weekly Union casualty lists.
The most dramatic changes came first in the West. In the Indian Territory, only months after Fort Sumter, 10,000 African Americans, Native people and some southern whites battled Confederate armies. Survivors then fought their way to Kansas, where the young men among them joined unofficial Union units. Commanding those units were abolitionist officers who had gained military training a few years before riding with John Brown in Kansas. In the West, a multicultural Union army fought a type of war Lincoln had not ordered: They liberated enslaved people in Missouri.
The Deep South faced new problems. In May 1862 in Charleston, South Carolina slave seaman Robert Smalls was thinking that his Confederate battleship, Planter, “might be of some use to Uncle Abe.” One night, after the white officers had left, Smalls and his slave crewled their families aboard, sailed out of Charleston harbor and surrendered tothe Union fleet. Smalls became Captain of the Planter, now aship of the U.S. Navy.In light of fast-moving events white people began to reconsider their assumptions.
In 1862, Congress took note of the runaways' offers of help and abolitionist pressure with two Confiscation Acts. Theselaws opened the door to emancipation and the service of black troops. Finally, President Lincoln acted. As a “military necessity,” he announced, “We must freethe slaves or be ourselves subdued.” On January 1, 1863 Abraham Lincoln became “The Great Emancipator” -- by performing one of history’s great catch-ups. Four months later he admittedas much: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that eventshave controlled me.”
By August 1863, Lincoln saw “peace as not so distant.” Why? “Commanders of our armies in the field believe the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion.” He praised his new soldiers: "There will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind … while, I fear there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it."
That November, northern voters rewarded Lincoln for his battlefield victories and successful Black military gamble:He was returned to the White House by all but three states and 212 to 21electoral votes. He also polled the largest vote percentage -- 55% -- since Andrew Jackson and won a thumping 70% of military ballots.
Five days before his assassination,“Honest Abe” assessed his historic role: “I have only been an instrument. Thelogic and moral power of Garrison and the anti-slavery people of the countryand the army, have done all.” Sadly, what President Lincoln himself regarded as vital to his political and military success, Spielberg often leaves out.
After the first scene, the only people of color who appear are pleasant, taciturn servants. Gloria Reuben plays Mrs. Lincoln's quiet, subdued servant, Elizabeth Keckley. The real Mrs. Keckleypurchased her freedom, that of her son and sent the son to college (he volunteered and died in battle). She was an accomplished seamstress who served thehouseholds of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee before the Lincoln White House,where she became a confidant of Mrs. Lincoln. She also organized the Contraband Relief Society that aided thousands of wartime runaways with donations from the Lincolns, prominent whites and free African Americans. In 1867 she published her Memoir.
During January 1865 Lincoln welcomed some dynamic African Americans to the White House but they do not appear onscreen. Among them were Martin R. Delany, whom he characterized as “amost extraordinary and intelligent man” and had him appointed a Major, thehighest-ranking Black Union officer. Today, Delany is considered the father of Black Nationalism.
Three times the President met with“my good friend Douglass.” History knows him as Frederick Douglass: runaway slave, noted speaker, author and editor, an early champion of women’s rights,and the foremost recruiter of African American troops. Lincoln regarded Douglass as one of his chief advisors and told him “there’s no man’s opinion Ivalue more than yours.” Some scholars consider Douglass the greatest Americanreformer of the 19th century.
By overlooking the contributions of Keckley, Delany, Douglass and millions of others who helped end humanbondage and win the war, Spielberg makes a white Congress and President the sole creators of history. This is not the evidence provided by the Civil War, nor is it the way Lincoln understood his march to freedom and victory.
Early on, Abraham Lincoln was a frontier lawyer who told “darkey stories” and a Senate candidate who endorsed white supremacy. As President, he returned runaways to their owners and hoped freed slaves would leave the country. He rejected the reasoning of white and African American activists and resented their harsh language.
Later on, he began to listen, learn and change. And much to his credit, he never retreated from any advanced position he had previously taken. When he finally, finally advocated the right of black veterans and educated men of color to vote, he became the first modern President.
Sadly, this “Honest Abe,” along with many known and unknown African Americans and their white allies, failed to make the movie’s final cut. Yet as runaways, soldiers and anti-slavery agitators they helped determine the course of a war, shaped public opinion, pressed Congress to pass laws and Constitutional Amendments, and altered the thinking and actions of America’s greatest icon.
All Americans deserve toknow what President Lincoln knew about the country’s most important war.
